And she had thought Bayard a rogue. The word might have been invented to refer to this knight, with his seemingly endless appetite for charming women. Even when he seemed bent upon seducing her, Berthe saw his gaze drift over her shoulder when another maiden passed by. His fulsome praise was without merit. His flattery was as dust for its worth and nigh as plentiful.
If Bayard had deigned to speak with her, she might have granted him more encouragement than once she had. But he was always with Lord Quinn or taking an errand for him, following his lord’s dictate or tending his steed. He seemed most serious since the arrival of their companions, and while Berthe appreciated this side of his nature, she would have liked more of his attention. It was no wonder his armor shone so brilliantly, for he was always polishing it, though she thought that was the task of a squire.
She had hoped to speak to him on the ride to Sayerne, but he had never so much as glanced her way in the bailey of Annossy. She had ridden alongside Sir Niall in the vanguard, hoping that might vex Bayard into speaking with her, but he did not appear to have noticed. And now, Sir Niall was encouraged that his pursuit of her might bear fruit. She had been glad when he had ridden to hunt with Lord Quinn at first light—though still Bayard had eluded her company all the day long.
To her surprise—and relief—Sir Niall had taken one look at the Lord de Tulley’s niece and appeared to have forgotten all others in the hall. He even seemed to have forgotten how to speak, for no pretty compliments fell from his tongue. He simply stared at the maiden and it had only been the tale of the success of their companion in wedding Lord Quinn’s sister that had recalled him to his senses.
A fellow rogue, apparently, but one Berthe hoped was reformed.
The men then went to wash before the meal, and Berthe wondered if Lord de Tulley would consume it all before their return.
Lady Heloise could not seem to tear her gaze away from Sir Niall as he left. “Knights,” she whispered to her maid.
Sir Niall for his part, turned in the portal to grant her a charming smile and a bow.
Berthe heard the lady’s sigh of yearning.
She did not tell Tulley’s niece that Sir Niall could never be the knight of her imagination. He would never be content with one woman for more than a night.
If even that long.
For her part, she watched Bayard, wishing he would glance her way again. She would not so waste the opportunity if it came once more.
But he was striding after Sir Niall, his brow dark.
Berthe followed, intrigued.
Sir Niall halted when Bayard tapped him on the shoulder. He pivoted to find Bayard in his path.
“You!” Bayard said, pointing at Niall with such annoyance that Berthe was intrigued.
“Me,” Niall replied with a smile, gesturing to himself. He held up his hands, as if inviting all to admire him. “One glance and the lady is nigh mine. This will be a conquest of the heart to eclipse all others.”
“Make no jest of this,” Bayard fumed. “You treat a maiden with indignity and you think the matter no more than a moment’s amusement.”
Niall flicked a glance toward the hall. “I treat no lady with indignity,” he began, but Bayard strode closer and shook a finger beneath his nose.
“I speak of Berthe,” he growled and she felt her heart flutter.
“Berthe?” Sir Niall echoed, as if he had forgotten her existence.
“Aye, Berthe,” Bayard said with force. “All these months, you have courted her and tried to seduce her. I stood back when she seemed to welcome your attention...”
“As well you should,” Niall replied, folding his arms across his chest. “A wise man always cedes to greater expertise.”
“Greater expertise?”
“Aye. All know that I am the champion on the field of love. You might have watched more closely and learned something.” Sir Niall shook his head. “But that one, that maid, she is a frosty one. No man will ever slip between her thighs.”
“While you think Tulley’s niece will welcome you?” Bayard retorted.
Sir Niall smiled. “Perhaps I will wed her with Tulley’s blessing. If Rolfe can win that man to his side, it clearly can be accomplished with charm and persistence. Rolfe has no more a measure of either than I do.”
“And what of Berthe?”
“What of Berthe? She is pretty enough, but she is a maid not a noblewoman. She can give me little but a merry night, and she did not even give me that. Indeed, I have not had a kiss. It was well enough to amuse us both over the lonely winter months, but now there are better prospects. What of Berthe, indeed?”
Berthe gasped that he could be so callous, but neither man heard her for Bayard struck Sir Niall. The other knight swore as blood spurted from his nose then swung at Bayard. Within a moment, they were grappling for supremacy, but when Berthe stepped out of the shadows and cleared her throat, they froze and looked up.
“What a pair of ruffians you are,” she said with disapproval. “Sir Rogue and your even more roguish companion. You ought both to be ashamed of yourselves, fighting like this in Lord Quinn’s abode.”
“Even more roguish,” Sir Niall repeated, obviously affronted.
Bayard cast him aside and stepped forward with a smile. “I take it that you do not approve of rogues,” he said, his voice low and his eyes dark.
If Berthe’s heart had fluttered before, that had been but a precursor to its wild movement now.
“I do not approve of rogues,” she said, bracing her hands upon her hips. “I do not approve of men who make promises they do not intend to keep, and I do not approve of men who take what they desire and grant naught in exchange.”
“I give plenty in exchange,” Sir Niall protested.
“Confide as much in Lady Heloise,” Bayard scoffed.
“I will.”
“Or better yet, to Lord de Tulley,” Berthe added. “He will be most interested in what you intend to grant. The confession might see you hanged.”
“Or gelded,” Bayard added.
Niall had the grace to flush. “You know little of it...” he began but Berthe dismissed him with a wave.
Bayard’s gaze locked with hers at that gesture. He took a step closer and she thought she might die of anticipation. She was vaguely aware that Sir Niall muttered something, then strode back to the hall.
She was keenly aware that Bayard stood before her, that the stars were appearing overhead, and that there was no one else worthy of consideration in the width of Christendom. When he looked at her with such intensity, she would do any deed for him.
“Then what manner of man meets with your approval?” he asked, his low words making her shiver.
“I like a man who is fair to look upon,” she managed to say. “But I like one better who can speak the truth in his heart.”
Bayard stepped closer, his expression filled with a hope that echoed her own. “And?”
“And I like a man who shares a confidence,” she admitted. She pulled his perfume bottle from her purse and his eyes lit.
“You yet have it!”
“I am not such a fool as to discard a prize,” she scoffed, then smiled at him. He closed the distance between them and looked down at her with fire in his eyes.
Berthe’s toes curled.
“I thought you smitten,” he murmured.
Berthe let her smile widen as she tipped back her head to hold his gaze. “You are right. I am utterly smitten, but not with your companion knight.” She reached out and boldly offered her hand. “I know better, sir.”
Bayard smiled as he captured her hand within his own, holding her gaze as he pressed a kiss to her palm. “Be mine?” he asked. “Quinn has offered me a post and a home, either here or at Annossy. If you wed me, Berthe, I vow to do all within my power to bring you happiness.”
“You already have, Sir Rogue,” Berthe had time to confess before Bayard caught her close and granted her a most satisfactory kiss.
Quinn was glad to leave the h
all later that evening, abandoning it for the privacy of the solar. It was past time that he made a sweet confession to Melissande, especially as she had risked her life for him this day. The solar seemed large and cool when they were there alone.
He did not release her hand. “I thank you for your endorsement to Tulley. I did not think he could be swayed in my favor.”
“It is my duty to defend the interests of my lord husband.”
“Is that the sole reason you did it?”
Color flared in her cheeks. “I spoke for you because it was right. Tulley was unjust in withholding the seal and he had to know it. I merely reminded him.”
Quinn could not help but smile at her fearlessness. “You might have waited until I could watch.”
She flushed more deeply and seemed discomfited. “It was an argument that had to be made in your absence, sir.”
Sir. Again, she retreated from using his name. Quinn reached and took her hand in his, feeling that she trembled slightly.
“Is this the moment?” she asked, lifting her chin.
“Which moment would that be?”
“The one in which you declare that you mean to remain at Sayerne, and that I should return to Annossy alone. The one in which you tell me that we shall live apart instead of together, and to advise you whether I deliver of a son or not.” She continued when he did not speak. “The one in which you divide the household as you see just, and request that I send word of the babe’s gender when he or she is born.”
“I thought that you wished to hold the seal of Annossy above all else.”
“As did I.” Melissande took a breath and held his gaze. “Until I came to love my lord husband. Now I desire above all else to be by your side and become your wife in truth.”
Quinn nodded, his chest tight with emotion. He slid his thumb over her hand, awed that this lady should be his bride, his wife and his love. “It was in this chamber that my mother told me the tales shown in the tapestries she had brought as her dowry. They are all gone, of course, as is she, but I remember those tales.”
Melissande remained silent, her gaze intent.
“In every one of them, a noble and gallant knight won the love of a beautiful lady. Quite often, she was clever, too, and the way my mother told the tales, the happy couple well deserved each other.” He watched his thumb move across her hand. “They faced obstacles together, fearsome monsters, and dreadful trials, but their love for each other ensured both their success and their happiness.”
“Yet your father...”
“Yet my father was the man he was,” Quinn agreed with a sigh. “And I knew that she had loved another, but she did as bidden by her father. There was naught to be done about it, for to defy my father and her own would have been a rejection of every code of honor she knew. But she told me those tales, and she bade me find a lady deserving of my love, then do whatever was necessary to win her heart forevermore.” He lifted his gaze to Melissande’s and found himself snared by the vivid green of her eyes. “I believe I loved you from the first, my lady. My heart has been yours from before we exchanged our vows, and it is yours forevermore.”
“You love me?”
“I love you.”
Melissande flung herself toward him in her relief and Quinn smiled as he caught her close. “But you did not trust me,” she accused after he had kissed her.
“You did not trust me,” he countered, moving onto the pallet with her in his lap. “We are alike in so many matters, my Melissande.”
She laughed and curled against him in contentment. “Aye, perhaps even in our desire for the great bed in Annossy’s solar on this night of nights.”
Quinn chuckled. “We shall have one here, as well.”
“Aye. And a tapestry or two.” She lifted her hand and his mother’s ring glinted on her finger. “Oh, Quinn.” She turned her hand to grip his. “I am so honored to wear your mother’s ring.”
“I could give you no other. It was a mark of my pledge to win your love at any cost.” Quinn bent and captured her lips with his, loving how she rose to meet his embrace. His kiss soon turned incendiary and they might have surrendered to temptation, but Quinn had more to say. “Zounds, Melissande, who might have guessed that love could grow so strong so quickly? I cannot imagine my days without you.”
“Aye,” she whispered. “I love you as I never imagined I could love anyone. My only fear is that you will despise me for bringing Arnaud and his hate so close to your door.”
“Hush, my lady.” Quinn laid his fingertip across her lips. “Do not even utter his name. It was you indeed who saved me from him and that is no small thing. I am in your debt and I would take the remainder of our days to show you what that means.”
By the way his lady wife smiled, and by the way she returned his kiss, Quinn knew that she had no complaint with that.
Epilogue
It was a year after their first journey to Sayerne that Melissande retired to the solar at Sayerne. She and Quinn had ridden to that holding to oversee to the ploughing and the planting. After the evening meal and much merriment, Melissande climbed to the solar with her son in her arms.
After the roof had been repaired and the rest of the hall restored, Quinn had ordered that a great bed be built at Sayerne, much like the one at Annossy. Melissande found it nigh filling the solar, just as she had envisioned it would be. It was hung with heavy draperies, as she had wished. The braziers had already been lit in the solar for it was still cool at night and the new tapestry she had requested from the Low Countries was already hung on the wall. Melissande touched it with wonder, thinking of the stories she would tell the infant in her arms. She settled then beside the fire to nurse him while she awaited Quinn, smiling at the sound of his deep voice rising from the hall below.
Could she ever have imagined she would be this content? Could she ever have imagined that it would be her joy to see Annossy and Sayerne united, and herself the beloved wife of Jerome’s son? It defied belief, yet was so, all the same.
She and Quinn had settled into a pattern of living mostly at Annossy, but holding court monthly—on the new moon—at Sayerne. Bayard commanded the garrison at Sayerne and managed the holding for Quinn in his absence, which had ultimately cost Melissande a maid. She had known that Berthe was smitten but Bayard had been determined to offer her a home. He had built his abode at Sayerne with his own hands, with Berthe’s approval. The pair had married after Melissande was delivered of her son in January, and Berthe had moved to Sayerne then.
Melissande missed Berthe’s companionship and her competence, but loved to see the younger woman so happy. Her former maid had greeted her at the gates to see little Bayard herself and make a fuss over him. Melissande did not think she imagined that Berthe’s stomach was a little rounder than before.
Niall remained in Quinn’s service, and was always prepared to take any message or errand to Tulley. Amaury, Luc, Thierry and Lothair had left for home the previous June, along with much goodwill and many invitations to return. They had intended to halt at Viandin en route to see Rolfe. Melissande and Quinn had ridden to Viandin to visit Rolfe in the autumn, and it had filled Melissande’s heart with joy to see Quinn meet the younger sister he had never known. Annelise had been told foul lies about Quinn by Jerome but their reconciliation had been most potent.
And their infant son had been most handsome.
Tulley had developed a fierce cough during the winter and there had been concern for his welfare. To Melissande’s surprise, it had been the wife of Annossy’s miller who named a concoction that had proven to be of aid, for she had learned of it from Lothair. Tulley had taken the miller’s grandson under his care and had vowed to see the boy trained for knighthood as compensation for their aid.
Melissande settled her son into his cradle, then went to the window that overlooked the keep. She could see the spring onions coming up in the kitchen garden to her right, but there was a new garden dug before her. The soil had been turned, but she was uncertain what
would be planted in this space, which was outside the walls of the kitchen garden. No doubt Quinn had a plan. The rich smell of the earth rose to her nostrils. She leaned out the window and watched the stars appear one by one as the sky deepened from indigo to black. The warm spring wind stirred her hair and the silver crescent of the moon rode high in the sky.
Melissande was more content than she had guessed it was possible to be.
All because of Quinn.
She heard his footfalls and turned to watch his approach. He granted her a smile that heated her to her toes, then she noticed the small package he carried. “I have no need of a gift,” she said, her tone teasing and he smiled.
“Nor I, but this is for both of us.”
Melissande tipped back her head to hold his gaze and was lost in the warm amber glow of his eyes. By the saints above, she loved this man with every fiber of her being.
Then Quinn offered her the box.
“It is from the East,” he said as she accepted its slight weight. “And the only thing I brought back from there besides my own hide.”
Melissande held the box toward the moonlight, seeing that there was detail on the surface. The moonlight picked out the inlay on its lid and she ran one fingertip across the wood in appreciation of the fine craftsmanship. A vine of flowers was made of ivory on the lid, the leaves delicately traced and petals lovingly drawn.
Melissande looked questioningly to Quinn.
He cleared his throat, though still his voice was gruff when he spoke. “It was given to me by Marcus, the keeper of the tavern we frequented, when he learned that we intended to leave the Holy Land. He gave a gift to each of us, all different, all mysterious in their own way.”
“Mysterious,” Melissande echoed with a smile.
“I heard the news of Sayerne and Marcus knew of that.”
“It is a lovely piece of work to grace your home.”
All's Fair in Love and War: Four Enemies-to-Lovers Medieval Romances Page 33
